28800
by Catri Howlman-Carthaki spy
Summary: In which Young and Rush are rats in a maze, time is faster inside, and finding the way out doesn't solve all their problems.


**Title:** 28800  
**Pairing:** Rush/Young  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** lack of proper dialogue, unsanitary eating and drinking habits, post Season 2, vaguely explained alien bad guys, illness, plot-device induced deafness, wibbly wobbly timey whimey  
**Notes: **Written for the hc_bingo prompt "loss of hearing". Meant to take place post season 2.

**Notes v2.0:** Companion toDrink Me. First posted on LJ. It has a sequel, but it'll be a while before I post it here because I'm not sure how to tweak the formatting.

**_Summary:_**In which Young and Rush are rats in a maze, time is faster inside, and finding the way out doesn't solve all their problems.

* * *

Neither of them knows sign language. Young can say "thank you" and "go"; Rush can't sign at all. They have other ways.

Young sees movement ahead. He signals Rush to stop. Rush raises an eyebrow.

Young shrugs. Rush huffs – Young can't hear it, but he can recognize the motion of Rush's shoulders, the way his eyes flick briefly upwards.

They wait behind a tree. It's several minutes before the movement comes again. Young looks back at Rush, Did you see it that time?, and Rush nods a yes.

Rush's thumbs say Good, bad, neutral? Young tilts the thumb of his free hand to the side and rocks it up and down, Not sure.

When there is no blinding flash of light, Young deems it safe to say Not bad. He ignores Rush's sarcastic jazz hands, and readies his knife. Rush had made a rough bow and arrow, but they save that and the guns for danger. They know better than to waste ammo on something they'll lose sight of.

Rush's fingers twitch –doing equations in his head, maybe. Young nudges him, Forward.

* * *

The movement was an animal. A slow one, with a thick hide. Young cuts its throat. What meat they can't carry and cook will be left. They keep the hide.

* * *

Young dreams of screams and flashing lights. He jerks awake and stares at the back of Rush's neck. Their legs are tangled together under the stinking hides. One arm is slung across Rush's waist.

Rush is half asleep; his heart rate gives him away. He doesn't react when Young buries his face in his neck. It's easier that way.

They made good progress the day before, but that is no guarantee. If trouble comes, they'll be set back weeks. Months.

A month inside was an hour outside. In seventy-two hours, Destiny would be gone, and they had twenty hours left.

Rush touches his fingers to the back of Young's hand. Young doesn't really reply, but the way he shifts closer is answer enough.

* * *

Rush copes by doing long stings of equations in his head. Young copes by interrupting him. It isn't enough, but for now it works. Young isn't sure how he coped in the two months before Rush joined him here, but it wasn't as well as this.

* * *

Young doesn't realize he's gone back to sleep until Rush wakes him. He fells disoriented, fuzzy…sick. Shit.

He looks up at Rush, trying to think of a way to get that across. From the way Rush was frowning at him, there was no need.

Young levers himself to standing, but Rush pushes him back down. He does it again, too, the second time adding a 'stay' gesture.

Young gives him and incredulous look. Rush gestures again, Stay.

Young's eyebrows shoot up, Are you crazy?, but Rush isn't paying attention. He's looking over their resting place again, tugging at the hanging vines that had made it such an inviting place to stop, searching for signs that something else already lived there, eyeing the thick net of branches above them for eminent danger. Then he pushes until Young is laying flat and puts a hand over his eyes, Rest.

Young pushes his hand away, gestures to the both of them, and makes the sign for Go. Rush shakes his head, and puts his hand over Young's eyes again. Young pushes it away.

They glare at each other.

Rush puts his hand over Young's eyes and shoves his head to the ground at the same time. Then Rush sits on him, trapping his arms at his sides. Under normal circumstances, Young would be able to buck him off, but these aren't normal circumstances.

Rush's hand beats out a sharp rhythm against Young's chest – stay stay stay. He doesn't, until he realizes that the force of Rush's hand is also please.

* * *

He wakes, and there is a small fire, with Rush cooking something equally small over it. Rush has found fruit as well, and the alien canteens look full.

Young realizes, dimly, that while he was asleep, Rush must have left and come back. Why did he come back?

* * *

His dreams replace the aliens with Telford and Emily, so it's Telford who traps him, and Emily who tosses him into the rift. Rush hasn't explained what they're in exactly – that would require words, and words don't work here.

In his dreams, Young sees Emily looking down on him like a rat in a maze. He feels himself yell "What kind of experiment is this?" He can hear her laugh.

* * *

Rush shakes him awake. Young is pulled to his feet. He gets it; danger's coming, they have to move. Rush squeezes his shoulder, Sorry, and half drags him from the cave of vines.

Young apologizes too, for the inconvenience, and tries to keep his feet under him.

They have a long way to go.

* * *

They manage for half a day before Young completely blacks out. When he comes to, he wonders why Rush's mouth is moving. Rush has one hand on the side of his face, the other shaking his shoulder. In Young's professional opinion, he looks freaked.

Young's baffled for a moment, trying to squirm away, before he realizes that he's squirming and oh yeah, unconscious.

They don't have a way to say "you fainted", so Rush says it with his mouth. Neither of them bothers with keeping quiet anymore – here, nothing and no one can hear.

Young tries to apologize, but his hands feel weighed down. He says sorry with his mouth instead. Rush waves it away.

He presses his hand against Young's chest. Young rolls his eyes – where would he go?

Rush doesn't wander far, just far enough to find what looks like a reasonable resting spot. Then he hauls Young upright.

* * *

Young sleeps but not well. When he wakes, Rush isn't beside him and the world is moving. He frowns.

He realizes that Rush has made some sort of sled, some sort of stretcher – Rush is pulling him. Piled on and around Young are a few of their supplies – their backpacks, their canteens, their food, their hides. He's strapped down well and good. Impressive.

He wonders again, why Rush is going through all this trouble. Then again, thirty hours…thirty months is a long time.

Young tries to tell Rush, I'm okay, I can walk, but he can't catch his attention. Rush is walking with a single minded determination.

Young stares at Rush's back, to well-tied to do anything else. Eventually, he goes back to sleep.

* * *

He wakes to Rush's hands on his face. Rush is frowning at him like he's a particularly annoying puzzle, but Young can see the signs of worry on Rush's face, the way his hands are just a little too gentle. Gentle tends to be a bad sign with Rush, in Young's experience.

Young makes it clear that he wants out. Rush points at his crotch and Young shakes his head. He doesn't have to piss. He wants to walk, but he'll settle for getting his arms free at least. He tugs on his arms, hoping Rush will get the message. He can't really talk without his hands.

Rush nods and frees one arm, leaving the other trapped under hides and…was that vine? Young drew a question mark over his trapped arm and Rush made the sign for nightmares. Rush didn't offer any other answers, so Young left it alone. Instead, he moved his fingers in a walking motion. Rush immediately shook his head.

You'll slow me down, he said. Young gave him a look – I already slow you down.

Rush shakes his head again, and deliberately looks away when Young asks again. Eventually, ignoring Young except to give him food a water, Rush managed to bypass it altogether.

When they set off again, Young was still in the sled. At least he had a hand free.

* * *

Young doesn't really think about Destiny that much. He used to, six months in, twelve months in, but lately he doesn't.

When Destiny crosses his mind, he's usually half asleep. He can hear everything then – the groan of the ship as it goes in and out of FTL, chatter in the mess hall, the whoosh of the stargate. Those are the only times he remembers the sound of his own breathing.

Awake now, with nothing to occupy him but his own aches and pains, Young thinks about Destiny. He tries to remember all of her sounds, but it's harder when he's awake. He can hardly remember what his own voice sounds like. He's gotten used to oppressive silence, nothing but the things he can see and smell and feel.

Thirty months. It seems like it should be longer. Maybe it is.

* * *

Young asks how long he's been sick. Once Rush's figured it out, he shrugs. Young thinks he must've slept through most of it.

Instead he says, I'm okay. Rush seems to snort at that.

* * *

It feels good to be up and walking again, and Young has always been the better hunter. They keep the sled, though.

* * *

Young decides that he's tired of his beard. While they're gathering water, he shaves. Rush rolls his eyes, and shakes his head when Young offers him the pocketknife.

Young feels more human, more like his old self. Personal grooming hasn't been high on his list of concerns, but he indulges in it now, taking the knife to his hair next. An exasperated Rush takes it from him.

When he examines his reflection in the water, he almost recognizes himself.

Rather than half-hazardly hacking at his hair, Rush ties it in a knot at the base of his neck and has Young cut _that_off.

It's a psychological thing, definitely, but Young feels confident again – confident that they'll make it out, make it back to Destiny.

* * *

It was easier to dream of Earth when he could go back and experience it through another person's senses. It's harder when the only ties he carries with him are the ones in his backpack. Mostly he dreams of Destiny. It's closer, more real.

If he wants to remember Destiny, he watches Rush watch the sky. There's no way he can forget what Rush is looking for.

* * *

While they're hiding from the aliens, Young asks how long?

Rush thinks, then says eighteen hours.

Then they get hit by a beam of light.

Young wants to lose his temper, but they don't have the time. Instead he takes deep breathes, and then he jogs to catch up with Rush.

* * *

The next time he asks, Rush says fifteen. They have no way of knowing how far back they were pushed, so the best they can do is hope it wasn't too far.

* * *

They're both a little rough that night, but it doesn't matter. So long as they can run tomorrow, it doesn't matter.

Young wishes he could hear it. He wants to hear the sound Rush makes when he arches his back that way. He wants to hear every hiss and growl and moan, and he wants to hear every breath, every heartbeat, all of it.

He wants to hear the sounds they rip out of each other. If he can hear it, maybe he can reason it out, this thing they have; seventy percent violence, twenty percent affection, ten percent something…something.

He needs to hear it.

* * *

He thinks about asking, but he doesn't. Instead he keeps a close eye on their surroundings. At the slightest hint of movement they drop. They don't stop to eat. When they need water they get it, when they run out of food they get it. Rush is willing to eat his meat raw, but Young insists on cooking it. When they think it's safe, they jog.

Fifteen hours is not a lot of time.

* * *

They have ten hours to spare when they reach the wall of rock. They've fashioned a few of the hides into sort of capes. Rush is wearing one as a sort of hood. Rush has other ideas for the hides. They have enough that he can experiment with them – if he botches some, they have ways of getting more.

Young hasn't used his gun in a while – ammo is limited here more than it ever was on Destiny. Mostly he sticks with his knife, fumbles with archery a bit but neither of them are trained for it. Mainly, Young uses his bow for scaring things away, but Rush is halfway decent at shooting with it, and he's equally decent at spear fishing.

Maybe it's odd, but they've had time to practice.

Rush asks, Good Bad Neutral. Young says Neutral, and then says Out.

Rush is confused, but Young says he remembers this. This is the way out.

Rush looks closer at the face of the rock, looking for signs that this is the place. Young is already looking left and right, trying to see if there's an obvious opening. They'll have to follow the wall otherwise.

Rush turns in a circle, frowning, and then points left. That's the way they go.

Young has his gun ready, just in case.

* * *

The opening is innocuous in appearance. Young hesitates before going through. Rush pushes his shoulder, What are you waiting for?, and when Young looks at him he says Go.

Young steps out, out into real-time, out into…

Rush catches him as he stumbles back, hands over his ears. Rush shakes him a little, what what, and Young can't do much besides hold his ears.

Young says with his mouth "I can hear too much", but he's not sure it makes sense, and Rush can't see his face anyway.

Rush figures it out on his own, stepping out and immediately stepping back in. His question is what now, and Young doesn't really know.

They sit there for an hour or so, their time, before Rush remembers his backpack. In it is a remote from Destiny. Young doesn't think it will have power, but Rush turns it on and sets it into real-time.

Then they don't have much option but to wait. After everything, waiting isn't all that hard.


End file.
